Throughout modern history, the country has glimpsed opportunities for liberal democracy only fleetingly

An Egyptian man adjusts a billboard with pictures of former President Gamal Abdel Nasser's in Cairo July 23, 2002. Reuters

CAIRO, Egypt -- Old ways die hard.

It
only requires a quick glance at the new Egyptian junta -- as most of
the country's citizens see it -- to understand how the military rulers
see their inviolable position. On its Facebook page,
the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces issues terse directives.
Egyptian citizens post comments by the tens of the thousands, but
there's never any response. The military's high-handed public outreach
is similarly one-sided. One general appears on television to read the
same directives, stony-faced, to a camera. And every now and again, the military stages public "dialogues," which come across, intentionally or not, as patronizing lectures.

How
does the military view its future in Egypt? What internal dynamics are
shaping the military's political strategy, which could in large part
determine whether February's revolution is a success? Within the officer
corps, there are diverse views as to how much power the Egyptian army
should wield, and how much it should yield to elected civilians.

It
can be difficult to get answers to these questions from the military,
perhaps in part because they themselves don't yet know. So I've turned
to reading history, hoping to find answers there, and was struck once
again by the tight congruity between present-day Egypt and the critical
points it has experienced over the last century and a half. During much
of that time, Egypt has politically lain fallow, either because of
self-induced paralysis as during Hosni Mubarak's rule or long periods of
colonial subjugation, as during the era of the British-orchestrated
Veiled Protectorate.

The times of wide-open transition, when
anything seemed possible, have been few and far between. Egyptian
colonels revolted against British rule and were crushed in 1882. After
World War One, there was a flash when liberal government appeared a
distinct possibility, but again, Britain and the Egyptian royal family
conspired against it. Arguably, the last time before the present day
when Egypt entertained the possibility of representative rule was in
1952, when Gamal Abdel Nasser's Free Officers deposed the king and
promised a prosperous, democratic "Egypt for Egyptians."

Historian
Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid Marsot, in her short History of Egypt: From the
Arab Conquest to the Present tells a depressing tale of the nearly
constant "alienation of the population of Egypt from their rulers." Her
capsule recounting of Nasser's rise to power and disastrous rule carry
an unmistakable warning for Egyptians today, especially those who trust
the military's probity or competence.

On July 23, 1952, Nasser
and his co-conspirators deposed the loathed monarchy and pledged to rid
Egypt of domestic corruption and British control. They promised a
three-year transition period, Marsot writes, by the end of which Egypt
would enjoy a parliamentary democracy vastly improved from the days of
British and Egyptian royal machinations. Under the guise of
modernization and land reform, Nasser dismantled the old political and
economic elites, putting his own loyalists in positions of power.

The
officers ... had assumed the political parties would soon pull themselves
together and collaborate to build a new Egypt. Whether it was
disappointment at the backbiting that arose between the parties, as
Nasser claimed, that caused disillusion with a liberal form of
government, or whether the officers found the lure of power too strong
to resist, they soon decided to take an active role in the
administration of the country. Officers became instant bureaucrats and
cabinet ministers, and had to learn the ropes through experience,
sometimes with disastrous results. Meanwhile the experienced politicians
were arrested, imprisoned and later forbidden to participate in any
political activity.

By then, no institution or
individual was powerful enough to resist Nasser's illiberal military
dictatorship, which continued the abusive authoritarian practices of
Egypt's previous, despised rulers.

Today's Egypt boasts no
charismatic leaders like Nasser and few institutions of any note beyond
the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. The parallel, of course, is
inexact, but its lessons ought to be studied and remembered.

Josh Stacher and Jason Brownlee make a similarly gloomy case in this academic newsletter
that, so far, there's more continuity than change in Egypt today --
meaning, the links to an authoritarian, military-chaperoned kleptocratic
state have been able to withstand calls for substantive reform.

The echoes of history are not lost on Egyptians. At a recent meeting of the Center for Socialist Studies,
young leftists debated the best strategy to undermine a second wave of
military rule. Nasser nostalgia distorted public opinion of the Egyptian
military, several speakers argued, and activists would need to work
assiduously to spread skepticism about the pitfalls of army rule.

The
Center operates like a small think tank, but its membership -- largely
comprised of Marxist journalists -- hopes to establish a Workers
Democratic Party. One of them, Ibrahim AlSahary, said the Supreme
Council of the Armed Forces was cleverly using the old tricks of Egypt's
ruling class to scare the public into supporting them: publishing false
statistics to suggest Egypt was on the verge of economic collapse,
fomenting a crime epidemic by keeping police off the streets, and
selectively repressing public criticism of the junta's record.

"Only
a tiny number of counter-revolutionaries are benefitting from military
rule," said AlSahary, wearing a muted green polo shirt and blue jeans.
"We need to reach the millions who are dreaming of change." He said he
believes that class warfare between officers and enlisted men will
ultimately hobble Egypt's military rulers and open the way for civil
rule -- and he thinks socialists can foment that division.

Ibrahim's
discursive flights of oratory, tailored more for a parliamentary
chamber than the austere meeting room near Giza Square, made it
difficult for other attendees to be heard. But another journalist, Bisan
Kassab, managed few words.

"Most people don't believe in class
warfare," she said, underscoring the problem that has plagued Egyptian
reformers since the 19th Century. "We need to talk about things people
care about, in language people can understand. People will only want to
end the army's role if they think the army is doing something wrong."

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